Getting a "week off?"

With our water polo season over and marching band season over, but swim team not yet started, we kinda had a week of down-ish time.  Evelyn still had tutoring and time with friends and her band concert and I got to go play water polo on Wednesday for the first time in a long time (and sadly the last time for awhile....)  

We all had Monday off for Vetran's Day.  I took James on an outing to the mall to walk around and talk and look at things.  I let him get a cute little stuffie and we had fun wandering around Bath and Body Works smelling stuff and picking out some things.  We also had fun looking at all the nerdy stuff in Box Lunch and checking out the Lego Store (though it was super crowded, so he didn't really want to stay in for too long.) 

Tuesday was David's field trip.  He had been looking forward to it for a long time.  Their grade went to go see Cat Kid Comic Club, the Musical.  He was in a group with a friend.  Her mom, who is also my friend, was chaperoning and sent some fun pictures to me of the kids and their exciting day!

Thursday was Evelyn's band concert.  They were amazing!!  The whole show was awesome, and Wind Ensemble did a band arrangement of O Magnum Mysterium!  That is one of my favorite choral pieces ever and it was neat to hear a band arrangement of it - plus I found out the the composer grew up in Beaverton and is a BSD alumni!  

After, the band kids went to Cold Stone for ice cream and celebration and fun.  Evelyn of course wanted to go, but I wasn't able to get her out of there until 10 pm - so I didn't make swimming Friday morning!  But she had a great time with friends and the ice cream was yummy! 

Thursday night was also David's swim lessons.  He did a great job and had a lot of fun with his friend Paxton! 

Evelyn has really been enjoying driving and wants to drive every chance she gets.  But her legs are shorter than me and Dan's.  So every time she gets in the car, she adjusts the seat.  Then when Dan or I next get in the car, we find ourselves squished up against the steering wheel or with our knees in the dashboard.  It's become a joke where we each complain about the other being too short or too tall.  

Saturday was crazy busy with swimming and water polo.  Plus I worked a lifeguard shift in the morning during the Water Polo State Championships.  It was fun to see and talk to people and watch water polo!  We also had Stake Confrence.  Dan had a leadership session while Aaron and I were at Parkrose and then He and Eileen and I went to the adult session.  Eileen was part of the musical number and she did an amazing job!  

Sunday morning was the general session of Stake Conference.  It was wonderful.  The choir did an amazing job.  The talks were wonderful and it was overall just a great morning!  

Then we had crepes for dinner!  

End of Seasons

This week marks the end of the Fall season High School activities.  On Wednesday, Evelyn had her banquest for the end of Marching Band.  They had a great season and she had a blast hanging with her friends!  Dan and I went for some of it, but had to leave to get me to water polo practice.  

Thursday, the girls had their play off game against Sam Barlow.  They played well, but we still lost.  After they were all feeling down - both about the loss and about the end of the season, so I took them all to Five Guys for a late lunch and a last hang out together.  We had a good time and spirits were much higher after!  

Saturday was the Water Polo Banquet.  The food was great and the company was great, and I only cried a little.  They are amazing kids and it was a blast to get one last hangout with them!  

On Thursday, both Dan and I went to donate blood at the church.  I was a little tired after, but not too bad.  

Saturday morning, I was planning to swim, but when I got up, for some reason I decided to take a day off.  I wasn't really tired, but I stayed home, and was glad I did.  Not too much later, David came into our room sobbing after having a bad dream.  He said that in the dream I died.  I can't imagine how much worse that would have been for him if he had come into our room after that dream and I had been gone.  I still got to go play water polo with Aaron at Parkrose and at Open polo, so it's not like I lost all my time to exercise.  :)  

David had Thursday and Friday off of school for parent/teacher confrences.  He found an old Coupon Book I had made for the kids and has started wanting to use them all.  He got Dan to take him on an outing to Subway on Thursday.  He had a sleepover with Paxton at our house Thursday night, then hungout at Paxton's house most of Friday.  Then Saturday, he wanted me to take him on an outing to go look at stuff at the mall.  We had fun together!  Later that day, I mentioned that since none of the kids had school on Monday because of Veteran's Day, I could do the same thing with him on Monday and he seemed super excited about it!  

Sunday was busy, but wonderful!  Church and Primary were great and after, Stake Choir went so well!  It was amazing hearing the choir and instruments together!  Then I went to the Encore rehearsal to chaperone.  It was so awesome to hear their rehearsal - they really sound amazing!  

Halloween

I can't believe October is over.  This was a busy week!  On Monday, we carved pumpkins with the kids.  They had fun and got creative! 

Tuesday, the water polo team had a game against Westview.  The girls won, the boys lost - but they had to forfeit because we only had 6 players there.  We've been dealing with a lot of sick kids this season.  

Then Wednesday, we played Hillsboro - at their pool.  It's an outdoor pool - which isn't always fun in the cold and wet, and is even less fun when the refs admit that they can't see anything, and are making some poor calls because of it.  We lost both games, but the worst part was the standing outside in the cold and rain for far longer than necessary...   

Thursday was Halloween.  I picked David up from school in my costume.  It is super soft and fluffy and he loved it so much that he snuggled with me for at least 20 minutes straight!  

After a fun dinner of halloween chicken nuggets, orange pasta-roni and salad, we went trick or treating with some friends!  We had a fun time, even though it was a bit cold and rainy.  My costume did an admirable job of keeping me warm out there!  

Then Aaron and I had water polo and Evelyn had band stuff.  We had a total of 3 kids at water polo - so we mostly just had fun.  But I had planned a whole fun Halloween themed work out including Zombie free style, Frankenstien Strokes, grave yard kicking, and mummy shooting.  So we did the work out on Friday.  :) 

Friday evening, Dan's parents arrived in town.  They felt the need to do a bit of extra cleaning in the boys bathroom before they used it!  But the boys had fun working with them!  We also had dinner with a couple in our ward and some other families in the ward.  The wife is from Thailand and she cooked a wonderful Thai dinner for us!  It was so yummy and I ate way too much!  

Saturday morning, after my morning swim, Dan and I went with his parent to the temple for Seth's Endowment.  It was so wonderful to get together with so much of the family for this special occasion.  After, everyone came over to our house for lunch. Dan smoked up a pork shoulder and we had a great time talking and eating and hanging out!  We also did a little birthday celebration for Eileen and Dave.  This was where they pretended to blow out the candles since we hadn't gotten our camera out fast enough for the real thing. 

After lunch, Dan's parents headed home, and I went to Parkrose to play water polo.  It was a fun time and then we headed home.  In the evening Dan took Jacob and a friend of his out to dinner at Fogo de Chao.  They had a great time together.  Mom and Aaron went to open polo and also had fun.  

Sunday was great!  Church was wonderful.  I had to leave a little early to be on the water polo seeding meeting.  The seeding meeting went about how we expected it to for the girls team, but right now it's looking like out boys won't play in the playoffs even though teams we beat will be playing.  It's a little frustrating, but it was nice to have some of the other coaches have my back when I spoke up about this seeming like punishing us for something we have no control over.  But he said he would talk to the board about it and that's really all we can ask for - but I don't know that it will change anything for this year.  

Sandi and James came over with Taz and Kai to play games and hang out.  We had fun playing Settlers of Catan and Sandi beat us all in record time.